Staying Present

I lectured today on the need to stay “present”. Well, it wasn’t much of a lecture actually. I was teaching Acting 1 to a group of high school students, which is quickly becoming a really cool way to start the day. I mean, just when I started to be convinced that I hated teaching, I got the chance to start a year with kids in this public arts magnet school and, you know what? It ain’t so bad. In fact, I’m thinking I could be pretty good at it, if I could be exempt from the formal lesson plans and the bureaucracy and the cafeteria duty, etc.

But back to being “present”. I have gotten in the habit of looking at the calendar and saying, “Two weeks from now, I’ll be in Venice.” Two weeks from this moment, I’ll be having a glass of vino rosa in la Piazza San Marco.” Two weeks from now, I’ll be driving to Sorrento.” And that’s not good. Between now and then, I have a lot of stuff to do! Most of it requires a great deal of concentration! If I’m focused on “then”, I explained to my class, I wouldn’t be a very good teacher “now”. I saw them nodding in agreement as I suggested they put away thoughts of their upcoming history class and stayed focused on the task at hand. Be “here” right now.

This blog entry is a case in point. There’s no wi-fi where I am sitting, babysitting two kids who have been given “lunch detention”. There are several things I could be doing to make better use of this time, but the lack of an internet connection prevents me from catching up on my several other jobs. I could bitch. I could be frustrated. Instead, what a nice moment to relax and let my thoughts go where they want to go. … to Italia.